Bible memory work is a crucial part of teaching children and teens what God wants them to know. Technology aside, they need to have God’s words firmly in their hearts and minds. Sometimes they will have to make a split second spiritual decision and won’t have the time to use Google or look it up in their Bible app.
There is this misconception that children can’t memorize things. Yet for centuries young Jewish children memorized the first five books of our Bible. Take a quick look at how much scripture that is. Your Bible students can easily master a few verses or even entire chapters. If you still aren’t sure, ask them to sing the lyrics of their favorite songs. They probably can sing from memory dozens of verses of various tunes.
What they need is to understand the “why” of scripture memory. Why is it important to memorize scripture? As someone with a degree in education, I can promise you teachers spend a lot of time explaining why their students need to learn certain things when they can just use technology to accomplish the same task. Giving concrete examples of times when it’s nice to have a scripture (or at least the gist of it) in your mind can help.
Here are some other tips to make scripture memory work easier or more beneficial.
- Used spaced repetition and recall. This is educator-speak for not having students memorize a passage and then never mentioning it again. Find ways to work the passages you have asked them to memorize into your classes periodically. Make it fun by sneaking passages into the class in unusual or fun ways. Maybe they walk into to it written on the board in some artistic or fun way. Or make it a question in a game or sing a song with verses as the lyric. Or have them use their memory to each fill in a word of the verse. Since your classes are usually a week apart, picking several important passages and rotating their review should be enough space.
- Teach vocabulary words. A lot of the words in scripture are not words in the daily language of children or even teens. Make sure your students understand the meaning of all of the words in the passages you are asking them to memorize. It’s a lot easier when it makes sense than when it’s a just a jumble of words that sound like nonsense to them.
- Teaching meaning. What is the point of the verse or passage? Why do you think it is important for them to memorize? What does God want them to learn from it? What does He want them to do with it?
- Choose longer passages. Memory verses rarely are truly memorized or make it into the long term memories of Bible students. It’s just too easy to look at it a couple of times and say it well enough to get credit for memorizing it. Longer passages take more practice and more repetitions to say it correctly. That extra practice is more spaced repetition making it more likely it will also be moved into long term memory. The passages don’t have to be super long, but the average child can easily handle two to fourteen verses at a time.
- It’s okay to sing scripture. Don’t forget the entire book of Psalms is a collection of songs and there are other songs scattered throughout the Bible. Some scriptures also have fun or familiar tunes and your students may already know them.
- Don’t forget art. Having your students create quality scripture art means they will be more likely to display it and be exposed to it daily. I used to have students make throw pillows out of the Fruit of the Spirit on one side and the Armor of God on the other. It was amazing how many kids “accidentally” memorized both passages from those pillows.
- Use class openers for review. Do you have students slowly enter your room? Have puzzles and games using scripture out for them to use while you are waiting for everyone to get to class.
- Go old school. Technology can be great, but there are lots of studies that have found that reading things in paper books and writing them down enhances memory.
There are lots of fun ways to encourage memorizing scripture. Although incentives can backfire long term, this is one area where they can help. Instead of a weekly prize for one memory verse, consider a bigger prize like taking a class field trip when the class as a group has memorized a large number of verses. (Be careful because not every student will participate, but the group shouldn’t be penalized nor the child shamed for lack of participation.) Have fun with it, but imprint as many scriptures on their hearts and minds as possible.